Embodiments of the inventive subject matter generally relate to the field of drawing applications, and, more particularly, to automatic management of diagram elements.
Operations performed on diagram elements in a drawing created in drawing applications, such as Microsoft Visio® and IBM® Rational® Software Architect, may cause unwanted side effects on other diagram elements in the drawing. Diagram elements comprise shapes, symbols, icons, text, images, etc. that can be used in a drawing (e.g., circles, lines, unified modeling language (UML) class representations, etc). Adding a new diagram element, resizing a diagram element or moving a diagram element may cause diagram elements to overlap or effect the spacing of diagram elements. A user manually adjusts diagram elements to correct spacing or overlaps.